no gold, and that gold is no recommendation of that which Is not
purchased with gold. This landmark therefore is transgressed by those
who in sacred things are so much delighted with gold, silver, ivory,
marble, jewels, and silks, and suppose that God is not rightly
worshipped, unless all things abound in exquisite splendour, or rather
extravagant profusion. There was a father[24] who said he freely
partook of flesh on a day when others abstained from it, because he
was a Christian. They transgress the landmarks therefore when they
curse the soul that tastes flesh in Lent. There were two fathers,[25]
of whom one said, that a monk who labors not with his hands is on a
level with a cheat or a robber; and the other, that it is unlawful
for monks to live on what is not their own, notwithstanding their
assiduity in contemplations, studies, and prayers; and they have
transgressed this landmark by placing the idle and distended carcasses
of monks in cells and brothels, to be pampered on the substance of
others. There was a father[26] who said, that to see a painted image
of Christ, or of any other saint, in the temples of Christians, is
a dreadful abomination. Nor was this merely the sentence of an
individual; it was also decreed by an ecclesiastical council, that
the object of worship should not be painted on the walls. They are far
from confining themselves within these landmarks, for every corner is
filled with images. Another father[27] has advised that, after having
discharged the office of humanity towards the dead by the rites of
sepulture, we should leave them to their repose. They break through
these landmarks by inculcating a constant solicitude for the dead.
There was one of the fathers[28] who asserted that the substance of
bread and wine in the eucharist ceases not, but remains, just as the
substance of the human nature remains in the Lord Christ united with
the divine. They transgress this landmark therefore by pretending
that, on the words of the Lord being recited, the substance of bread